Communication Systems

ABSTRACT

A transmission method for use in a multi-hop wireless communication system is provided. The method includes, for two apparatuses having overlapping transmission coverage areas, one of the two said apparatuses being an intermediate apparatus, transmitting a first transmission signal from a first one of those apparatuses in a first transmission window of a particular transmission interval and transmitting a second transmission signal from the second one of those apparatuses in a second transmission window of the particular transmission interval but not in said first transmission window, so that a communication apparatus located in the coverage areas of both the first and second apparatuses can receive said first transmission signal substantially without interference from said second transmission signal.

RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation application of pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/840,595 filed Aug. 17, 2007; which claims foreign priority benefits under 35 U.S.C. §119 of United Kingdom Application No. GB 0616482.6, filed on Aug. 18, 2006, entitled “Communication Systems.”

TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates in general to communication systems, and more particularly to providing safe communications among relay stations.

OVERVIEW

Currently there exists interest in the use of multihop techniques in packet based radio and other communication systems, where it is purported that such techniques will enable both extension in coverage range and increase in system capacity (throughput).

In a multi-hop communication system, communication signals are sent in a communication direction along a communication path (C) from a source apparatus to a destination apparatus via one or more intermediate apparatuses. FIG. 5 illustrates a single-cell two-hop wireless communication system comprising a base station BS (known in the context of 3G communication systems as “node-B” NB) a relay node RN (also known as a relay station RS) and a user equipment UE (also known as mobile station MS). In the case where signals are being transmitted on the downlink (DL) from a base station to a destination user equipment (UE) via the relay node (RN), the base station comprises the source station (S) and the user equipment comprises the destination station (D). In the case where communication signals are being transmitted on the uplink (UL) from a user equipment (UE), via the relay node, to the base station, the user equipment comprises the source station and the base station comprises the destination station. The relay node is an example of an intermediate apparatus (I) and comprises: a receiver, operable to receive data from the source apparatus; and a transmitter, operable to transmit this data, or a derivative thereof, to the destination apparatus.

Simple analogue repeaters or digital repeaters have been used as relays to improve or provide coverage in dead spots. They can either operate in a different transmission frequency band from the source station to prevent interference between the source transmission and the repeater transmission, or they can operate at a time when there is no transmission from the source station.

FIG. 6 illustrates a number of applications for relay stations. For fixed infrastructure, the coverage provided by a relay station may be “in-fill” to allow access to the communication network for mobile stations which may otherwise be in the shadow of other objects or otherwise unable to receive a signal of sufficient strength from the base station despite being within the normal range of the base station. “Range extension” is also shown, in which a relay station allows access when a mobile station is outside the normal data transmission range of a base station. One example of in-fill shown at the top right of FIG. 6 is positioning of a nomadic relay station to allow penetration of coverage within a building that could be above, at, or below ground level.

Other applications are nomadic relay stations which are brought into effect for temporary cover, providing access during events or emergencies/disasters. A final application shown in the bottom right of FIG. 6 provides access to a network using a relay positioned on a vehicle.

Relays may also be used in conjunction with advanced transmission techniques to enhance gain of the communications system as explained below.

It is known that the occurrence of propagation loss, or “pathloss”, due to the scattering or absorption of a radio communication as it travels through space, causes the strength of a signal to diminish. Factors which influence the pathloss between a transmitter and a receiver include: transmitter antenna height, receiver antenna height, carrier frequency, clutter type (urban, sub-urban, rural), details of morphology such as height, density, separation, terrain type (hilly, flat). The pathloss L (dB) between a transmitter and a receiver can be modeled by:

L=b+10n log d   (A)

Where d (meters) is the transmitter-receiver separation, b(db) and n are the pathloss parameters and the absolute pathloss is given by l=10^((L/10)).

The sum of the absolute path losses experienced over the indirect link SI+ID may be less than the pathloss experienced over the direct link SD. In other words it is possible for:

L(SI)+L(ID)<L(SD)   (B)

Splitting a single transmission link into two shorter transmission segments therefore exploits the non-linear relationship between pathloss verses distance. From a simple theoretical analysis of the pathloss using equation (A), it can be appreciated that a reduction in the overall pathloss (and therefore an improvement, or gain, in signal strength and thus data throughput) can be achieved if a signal is sent from a source apparatus to a destination apparatus via an intermediate apparatus (e.g. relay node), rather than being sent directly from the source apparatus to the destination apparatus. If implemented appropriately, multi-hop communication systems can allow for a reduction in the transmit power of transmitters which facilitate wireless transmissions, leading to a reduction in interference levels as well as decreasing exposure to electromagnetic emissions. Alternatively, the reduction in overall pathloss can be exploited to improve the received signal quality at the receiver without an increase in the overall radiated transmission power required to convey the signal.

Multi-hop systems are suitable for use with multi-carrier transmission. In a multi-carrier transmission system, such as FDM (frequency division multiplex), OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplex) or DMT (discrete multi-tone), a single data stream is modulated onto N parallel sub-carriers, each sub-carrier signal having its own frequency range. This allows the total bandwidth (i.e. the amount of data to be sent in a given time interval) to be divided over a plurality of sub-carriers thereby increasing the duration of each data symbol. Since each sub-carrier has a lower information rate, multi-carrier systems benefit from enhanced immunity to channel induced distortion compared with single carrier systems. This is made possible by ensuring that the transmission rate and hence bandwidth of each subcarrier is less than the coherence bandwidth of the channel. As a result, the channel distortion experienced on a signal subcarrier is frequency independent and can hence be corrected by a simple phase and amplitude correction factor. Thus the channel distortion correction entity within a multicarrier receiver can be of significantly lower complexity of its counterpart within a single carrier receiver when the system bandwidth is in excess of the coherence bandwidth of the channel.

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a modulation technique that is based on FDM. An OFDM system uses a plurality of sub-carrier frequencies which are orthogonal in a mathematical sense so that the sub-carriers' spectra may overlap without interference due to the fact they are mutually independent. The orthogonality of OFDM systems removes the need for guard band frequencies and thereby increases the spectral efficiency of the system. OFDM has been proposed and adopted for many wireless systems. It is currently used in Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) connections, in some wireless LAN applications (such as WiFi devices based on the IEEE 802.11a/g standard), and in wireless MAN applications such as WiMAX (based on the IEEE 802.16 standard). OFDM is often used in conjunction with channel coding, an error correction technique, to create coded orthogonal FDM or COFDM. COFDM is now widely used in digital telecommunications systems to improve the performance of an OFDM based system in a multipath environment where variations in the channel distortion can be seen across both subcarriers in the frequency domain and symbols in the time domain. The system has found use in video and audio broadcasting, such as DVB and DAB, as well as certain types of computer networking technology.

In an OFDM system, a block of N modulated parallel data source signals is mapped to N orthogonal parallel sub-carriers by using an Inverse Discrete or Fast Fourier Transform algorithm (IDFT/IFFT) to form a signal known as an “OFDM symbol” in the time domain at the transmitter. Thus, an “OFDM symbol” is the composite signal of all N sub-carrier signals. An OFDM symbol can be represented mathematically as:

$\begin{matrix} {{{x(t)} = {\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}{\sum\limits_{n = 0}^{N - 1}{c_{n} \cdot ^{{j2}\; \pi \; n\; \Delta \; {ft}}}}}},{0 \leq t \leq T_{s}}} & (1) \end{matrix}$

where Δf is the sub-carrier separation in Hz, Ts=1/Δf is symbol time interval in seconds, and c_(n) are the modulated source signals. The sub-carrier vector in (1) onto which each of the source signals is modulated c ε C_(n), c=(c₀, c₁ . . . c_(N-1)) is a vector of N constellation symbols from a finite constellation. At the receiver, the received time-domain signal is transformed back to frequency domain by applying Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) or Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm.

OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) is a multiple access variant of OFDM. It works by assigning a subset of sub-carriers, to an individual user. This allows simultaneous transmission from several users leading to better spectral efficiency. However, there is still the issue of allowing bi-directional communication, that is, in the uplink and download directions, without interference.

In order to enable bi-directional communication between two nodes, two well known different approaches exist for duplexing the two (forward or download and reverse or uplink) communication links to overcome the physical limitation that a device cannot simultaneously transmit and receive on the same resource medium. The first, frequency division duplexing (FDD), involves operating the two links simultaneously but on different frequency bands by subdividing the transmission medium into two distinct bands, one for forward link and the other for reverse link communications. The second, time division duplexing (TDD), involves operating the two links on the same frequency band, but subdividing the access to the medium in time so that only the forward or the reverse link will be utilizing the medium at any one point in time. Both approaches (TDD & FDD) have their relative merits and are both well used techniques for single hop wired and wireless communication systems. For example the IEEE 802.16 standard incorporates both an FDD and TDD mode.

As an example, FIG. 7 illustrates the single hop TDD frame structure used in the OFDMA physical layer mode of the IEEE 802.16 standard (WiMAX). Each frame is divided into DL and UL subframes, each being a discrete transmission interval. They are separated by Transmit/Receive and Receive/Transmit Transition Guard interval (TTG and RTG respectively). Each DL subframe starts with a preamble followed by the Frame Control Header (FCH), the DL-MAP, and the UL-MAP. The FCH contains the DL Frame Prefix (DLFP) to specify the burst profile and the length of the DL-MAP. The DLFP is a data structure transmitted at the beginning of each frame and contains information regarding the current frame; it is mapped to the FCH.

Simultaneous DL allocations can be broadcast, multicast and unicast and they can also include an allocation for another BS rather than a serving BS. Simultaneous ULs can be data allocations and ranging or bandwidth requests.

SUMMARY OF EXAMPLE EMBODIMENTS

In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a transmission method for use in a multi-hop wireless communication system is provided. The system includes a source apparatus, a destination apparatus and one or more intermediate apparatuses. The source apparatus is operable to transmit information in a communication direction along a series of links forming a communication path extending from the source apparatus to the destination apparatus via the intermediate apparatus. The intermediate apparatus is operable to receive information from a previous apparatus along the path and to transmit the received information to a subsequent apparatus along the path. The system has access to a time-frequency format for use in assigning available transmission frequency bandwidth for transmission in the communication direction during a discrete transmission interval, said format defining a plurality of transmission windows within such an interval. Each window occupies a different part of that interval and having a frequency bandwidth profile within said available transmission frequency bandwidth over its part of that interval, and each said window is assignable for such a transmission interval to one of said apparatuses for use in transmission. The method for use in this system includes, for two said apparatuses having overlapping transmission coverage areas, one of the two said apparatuses being an intermediate apparatus, transmitting a first transmission signal from a first one of those apparatuses in a first transmission window of a particular transmission interval and transmitting a second transmission signal from the second one of those apparatuses in a second transmission window of the particular transmission interval but not in said first transmission window, so that a communication apparatus located in the coverage areas of both the first and second apparatuses can receive said first transmission signal substantially without interference from said second transmission signal.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a more complete understanding of the present invention and its advantages, reference is now made to the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows examples of an RS region;

FIG. 2 shows a WiMAX relay system;

FIG. 3 shows an example of the operations to allocate RS region;

FIG. 4 shows that a BS can directly instruct an RS region without any request from RSs;

FIG. 5 shows a single-cell two-hop wireless communication system;

FIG. 6 shows applications of relay stations; and

FIG. 7 shows a single hop TDD frame structure used in the OFDMA physical layer mode of the IEEE 802.16 standard.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The frame structure in relay station (RS) should be well designed to keep compatibility with the standardized frame structure (FIG. 7 shows an example of standardized TDD frame structure in IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX) standard), and avoid interference the transmission of base station (BS), and mobile station (MS). Normally, the frame structure in RS should guarantee the communication between BS and RS, BS and MS, or RS and MS. However, communication among RSs is also important. This can allow RSs to exchange information directly, thus decreasing the signaling load in BS, and benefiting distributed algorithm implementation. Particular embodiments provide a feasible method to provide safe communications among RSs.

Definition of RS Region:

To ensure a safe communication between RSs, a BS will allocate one or multiple RS regions in downlink subframe or uplink subframe. The size of this region can be multiple OFDM symbols (FIG. 1 a), or multiple slots (FIG. 1 b)

The RS region is used for RS's transmission and receiving. BS and MS will keep quiet within RS region, thus avoiding interference. Preferred regulations for RS region allocation are:

-   -   a. The RS region will be created and synchronized in subframes         in RS, BS, and MS. The allocation and size will be instructed by         BS;     -   b. Within RS region, MS and BS will keep quiet;     -   c. BS shall indicate which RSs have the right to transmit within         the RS region;     -   d. One or more RSs can transmit information within a RS region;     -   e. Multiple RS regions can be allocated within the duration of         downlink and uplink subframes         The purposes of this RS region can be     -   a. Exchange information (including data, and signalling) among         RSs;     -   b. Exchange information (including data, and signalling) between         RS and MS;     -   c. Exchange information (including data, and signalling) between         RS and BS;     -   d. Pre-decided sequences can be added into RS region for channel         sensing, and synchronization;

System Operations to Allocating RS Region:

FIG. 3 shows the signaling diagram, when a relay station (FIG. 2) wants to request an RS region. In FIG. 3, RS 1# sent RS_Rng_Req to BS to request an RS region, more information relating the transmission within a RS region can be enclosed in this message. BS will send an RS_Rng_Rsp message for response. BS can deny or approve RS region allocation. More information relating the transmission within a RS region can be enclosed in this message. For example, the reasons of denying, the locating and timing information of the RS region, and access method etc. If BS approve the RS region request, the corresponding RS region will be allocated in subframes.

RS regions can be specified by BS directly without any request from RS. As shown in FIG. 4, the BS directly instruct an RS region for all RSs by sending RS_Rng_Rsp message. More information can be enclosed in this message.

In multi-hop relay systems, the messages, such as RS_Rng_Req, and RS_Rng_Rsp, can be relayed, thus allowing a multi-hop relay station to request RS regions.

In summary, benefits of particular embodiments may include:

1. Through the associated improvement in flexibility of frame structure (due to implement RS regions in DL subframe or UL subframe) to improve an OFDMA (such as WiMAX) system;

2. To afford a feasible way to allow RS to communicate each other, thus affording flexibility to the frame structure, and network deployment;

3. To afford more convenient for multi-hop relay systems, and distributed algorithm implementation;

4. A signaling mechanism is designed for the proposed RS region allocation method, which can be compatible with WiMAX standard;

5. More flexible for moving centralized algorithm to distributed style. A distributed implementation can release the computation and signaling load in BS;

6. The proposed region can be used for multiple purposes, such as channel sounding, handover, routing discovery and maintenance etc.

Embodiments of the present invention may be implemented in hardware, or as software modules running on one or more processors, or on a combination thereof. That is, those skilled in the art will appreciate that a microprocessor or digital signal processor (DSP) may be used in practice to implement some or all of the functionality of a transmitter embodying the present invention. The invention may also be embodied as one or more device or apparatus programs (e.g. computer programs and computer program products) for carrying out part or all of any of the methods described herein. Such programs embodying the present invention may be stored on computer-readable media, or could, for example, be in the form of one or more signals. Such signals may be data signals downloadable from an Internet website, or provided on a carrier signal, or in any other form.

Although the present invention has been described with several embodiments, a myriad of changes, variations, alterations, transformations, and modifications may be suggested to one skilled in the art, and it is intended that the present invention encompass such changes, variations, alterations, transformations, and modifications as fall within the scope of the appended claims. 

1. A multi-hop radio communication system comprising: a base station apparatus configured to transmit data in a downlink frame; an intermediate apparatus configured to relay said data received from said base station apparatus to a user equipment; and said user equipment configured to receive said relayed data, and transmit data in an uplink frame, wherein said base station apparatus assigns a transmission window within a frequency band which is used by said base station apparatus for transmission in said downlink frame, to said intermediate apparatus and wherein said base station apparatus and said user equipment are prohibited from transmitting radio signals from said base station apparatus and said user equipment in said transmission window.
 2. The multi-hop radio communication system according to claim 1, wherein said transmission window is defined by using frequency and time.
 3. The multi-hop radio communication system according to claim 1, wherein said transmission window is assigned to said intermediate apparatus in response to a request from said intermediate apparatus to said base station apparatus.
 4. The multi-hop radio communication system according to claim 1, wherein said transmission window is used for transmission from said intermediate apparatus to another intermediate apparatus or said user equipment in said downlink frame.
 5. The multi-hop radio communication system according to claim 1, wherein said transmission window is used for transmission from said intermediate apparatus to another intermediate apparatus or said base station apparatus in said uplink frame.
 6. A method used in a multi-hop radio communication system, said method comprising: transmitting data from a base station apparatus in a downlink frame; relaying, by an intermediate apparatus, said data received from said base station apparatus to a user equipment; and receiving, by said user equipment, said relayed data from said intermediate apparatus, and transmitting data in an uplink frame from said user equipment, and assigning, by said base station apparatus, a transmission window within a frequency band, which frequency band is used by said base station apparatus for transmission in said downlink frame, to said intermediate apparatus, and prohibiting the transmission of radio signals from said base station apparatus and said user equipment in said transmission window.
 7. A base station apparatus used in a multi-hop radio communication system, said base station apparatus comprising: a transmitting unit configured to transmit data that is relayed by an intermediate apparatus to a user equipment in a downlink frame and to prohibit transmission of radio signals in a transmission window that is assigned to said intermediate apparatus by said base station apparatus, said transmission window being within a frequency band which is used by said base station apparatus for transmission in said downlink frame.
 8. An intermediate apparatus used in a multi-hop radio communication system, said intermediate apparatus comprising: a receiving unit configured to receive data from a base station apparatus in a downlink frame; and a transmitting unit configured to transmit data to said base station apparatus or a user equipment for relaying in a transmission window that is assigned by said base station apparatus, said transmission window being within a frequency band which is used by said base station apparatus for transmission in said downlink frame, wherein transmission from said base station apparatus and said user equipment is prohibited in said transmission window.
 9. A user equipment used in a multi-hop radio communication system, user equipment comprising: a receiving unit configured to receive relayed data from an intermediate apparatus that relays data transmitted from a base station apparatus in a downlink frame; and a transmitting unit configured to transmit data in an uplink frame and prohibited from transmitting radio signals in a transmission window that is assigned to said intermediate apparatus by said base station apparatus, said transmission window being within a frequency band which is used by said base station apparatus for transmission in said downlink frame.
 10. A transmission method for use in a multi-hop wireless communication system, the system comprising a source apparatus, a destination apparatus and one or more intermediate apparatuses, said source apparatus being operable to transmit information in a communication direction along a series of links forming a communication path extending from the source apparatus to the destination apparatus via the one or more intermediate apparatuses, and the one or more intermediate apparatuses being operable to receive information from a previous apparatus along the path and to transmit the received information to a subsequent apparatus along the path, the system using a time-frequency format for transmission during a transmission period, with a plurality of transmission windows being provided within the transmission period, each window occupying a different part, said windows being assignable for transmission in the transmission period, the method comprising: transmitting a first transmission signal from a first apparatus, corresponding to one of said one or more intermediate apparatuses, in a first transmission window of a particular transmission period; and transmitting a second transmission signal from a second apparatus, corresponding to said source apparatus or another intermediate apparatus of said one or more intermediate apparatuses, in a second transmission window of the particular transmission period but not in said first transmission window, the first apparatus and the second apparatus having overlapping transmission coverage areas, wherein said intermediate apparatus transmits its own intermediate-apparatus information in said first transmission window.
 11. The transmission method according to claim 10, wherein a further intermediate apparatus of said communication system transmits a further signal in said first transmission window.
 12. The transmission method according to claim 11, wherein said further intermediate apparatus transmits its own intermediate-apparatus information in said first transmission window. 